John Cokayne (died 1438)
Sir John Cockayne (died 1438) was an English soldier, politician and landowner whose wealth made him a major force in the affairs of Derbyshire under the House of Lancaster.
[2] The Derbyshire historian Stephen Glover wrote that the Cockaynes "resided and flourished for many generations in this town, and had considerable estates in the county, much increased by a match with the heiress of Herthill.
It was this uncle who was a distinguished lawyer and it was he, not Sir John Cokayne of Ashbourne, who was Chief Baron of the Exchequer throughout the reign of Henry IV,[10] as well as Justice of the Common Pleas from 1406 until 1429, the year of his death.
The problem of identification is considerable, as the son died before his father (dvp or decessit vita patris in genealogical records), so their careers overlap for some decades with no clear chronological span for the younger Sir John to occupy as head of the family.
Maud continued to uphold her side in the property dispute and, now a widow, was living with Joan Peshale, her mother-in-law, at La Mote, a house within Chetwynd Park in Shropshire.
They were said to be "armed as for war,"[20] but stole a collection of additional weapons as they took Maud, who was forced to marry William Ipstones, Sir John's son, and made to renounce her claim to the disputed estates.
However, Joan Peshale pursued the matter through the courts, alleging that the gang had entered her manor by scaling the walls with ladders, threatened her and her tenants, attacked her servants and abducted a maidservant called Alice Costeyne as well as Maud.
On 18 March he, together with John Kniveton, Roger Bradbourne and Richard Cokayne, granted rents worth 100 shillings a year from the manor of Mercaston to William Hyde, the church's chaplain.
[28] Although there is no suggestion in the text that Sir John himself was present on this occasion, the list of those involved[29] overlaps substantially with that of his cronies who had terrorised the area in 1388,[11] including Edmund Harthill, presumably a cousin.
[32] The dangers of Cokayne's political position must have been apparent to him, not least because of the fate of his close friend Ipstones, murdered while in London for the 1394 Parliament by Roger Swynnerton, a relative of Maud.
Simon Walker cites him as an example of Gaunt's success in co-opting unruly gentry into the status quo, as he progressed "from breaker of the duke's chases in 1388 to chief steward of the North Parts of his duchy by 1398.
This was apparently chosen for its convenience in meeting and mobilising the Lancastrian affinity and network of duchy officials,[40] who played a major part in bringing the Midlands over to his side.
[64] The king appointed his son admiral[65] and large ships were requisitioned[66] and in April Cokayne obtained letters of protection to embark, probably on this occasion taking with him a party of 12 archers.
[67] The following year Cokayne again served under Thomas of Lancaster, who on 17 March 1406 was made responsible for operations to intercept rebels who were travelling across the North of England to link up with Owain Glyndŵr in Wales.
Leche had been chamberlain to Bolingbroke as Earl of Derby and had succeeded another Derbyshire man, John Curzon of Kedleston, as steward of the main Lancastrian stronghold in the region, Tutbury Castle.
The imprisoned knights may all have been involved in the quarrel between Cokayne and Leche or the internecine Lancastrian rivalries but the principle of selection may simply have been one of removing gentry miscreants temporarily from the region.
He also appointed Sir John Dabrichecourt a feoffee for his interest in the manor of Baddesley Ensor, with the aim of raising a sum towards the marriage of his younger daughter Elyn.
[86] He probably served in central France and Aquitaine until the death of Henry IV, when Clarence returned to England, after the French factions made temporary peace among themselves and bought off the English.
In December 1422 he was one of a team of local gentry commissioned to investigate breaches of the laws restricting the taking of salmon and lampreys, particularly the young fish, from the River Trent.
The Duchy of Lancaster, like the Crown, was no longer a distinct force in Derbyshire, so the immensely rich Cromwell, with a base in the east of the county, was a useful counterweight to the power of the Greys and Staffords.
[107] This took place in 1430 but is known from a long and complicated exemplification obtained by Cromwell in 1433, which shows the breadth of his dealings in the region, with numerous Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire estates claimed by himself or his representatives.
Eight plaintiffs and four defendants were named, although others were involved, and a number of tenements were at stake on or close to the Lincolnshire coast, at Theddlethorpe, Mablethorpe, Saltfleetby, Strubby, Carlton, Gayton and Withern, suggesting a contest between groups of property speculators.
[117] Subsequently, through the interpretations of two separate grand juries set before a commission of oyer and terminer at Derby in March and a trial the following month, the previous year's events were filtered into rival and shifting narratives.
The 1433 Parliament had agreed that "no Lorde, nor none other persone, of what estate, degree or condition that he be, shal wetyngly receyve, cherishe, hold in household, ne maynteyne" criminals of any sort.
[119] Ironically, it was Grey, together with Vernon and Cokayne, described as "knights of the shire," who were in May 1434 commissioned under the terms of the act to take oaths from a large number of Derbyshire men, pledging themselves not to maintain peace breakers.
[123][124] In 1412 Cokayne's income from his Derbyshire lands was put at £40, compared with an annuity of £60 he was still drawing from Ashbourne ex concessione domini regis pro termino vite sue (as a grant from his lord the king to the end of his life) as a Lancastrian retainer.
He was possibly aware of his impending death when in the Spring of 1438 he levied a fine of lands to compel the tenants of his manors of Calton, Staffordshire, and Ballidon, Derbyshire, to recognise the rights of Isabel, his second wife, as joint landholder.
On his death bed at his Warwickshire seat, Pooley, Cokayne was compelled to send for his friends and relatives Henry and Robert Kniveton to attest to his financial position and property dealings because of an argument between Isabel and his daughter Alice.
[147] The Knivetons seem to have been among feoffees he employed to handle his property: Henry was involved in transferring a small grant of land and houses around Ashbourne he had left to John Bate, dean of the Church of St Editha, Tamworth.
Early in 1439 Joan, the widow of Sir John's deceased eldest son, issued a writ for the arrest of Isabel on a charge of debt and, although it was not executed locally, she was detained in London and brought to court during Trinity term.
